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A DAY OF 
PLEASANT BREAD 





Books by David Grayson 
HK IK HK 


A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
ADVENTURES IN UNDERSTANDING 
GREAT POSSESSIONS 
HEMPFIELD 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 


i DAY. OF 
PLEASANT BREAD 


BY 
DAVID GRAYSON 





ILLUSTRATED BY 
LHOMAS [. FOGARTY 


GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
1926 
Princeton Theological Seminary Lit 


COPYRIGHT, IQIO, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COM- 
PANY. COPYRIGHT, 1908, 1909, I9I10, BY THE 
PHILLIPS PUBLISHING COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS 
RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE UNITED 8TATES AT 
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y. 


FIRST EDITION 


Ai DAY Of 
PLEASANT BREAD 





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A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


A [a have all gone now, and the house 
is very still. For the first time this 
evening I can hear the familiar sound of 
the December wind blustering about the 
house, complaining at closed doorways, ask- 
ing questions at the shutters; but here in 
my room, under the green reading lamp, it 
is warm and still, Although Harriet has 
closed the doors, covered the coals in the 
fireplace, and said good-night, the atmos- 
phere still seems to tingle with the electricity 
of genial humanity. 


2 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher 
still booms in my ears: 

“This,” said he, as he was going out of 
our door, wrapped like an Arctic highlander in 
cloaks and tippets, “has been a day of pleasant 
bread.” 

One of the very pleasantest I can remember! 

I sometimes think we expect too much of 
Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it 
the long arrears of kindliness and humanity 
of the whole year. As for me, I like to take 
my Christmas a little at a time, all through 
the year. And thus I drift along into the 
holidays—let them overtake me unexpectedly 
—waking up some fine morning and suddenly 
saying to myself: 

“Why, this is Christmas Day!” 

How the discovery makes one bound out 
of his bed! What a new sense of life and 
adventure it imparts! Almost anything may 
happen on a day like this—one thinks. | 
may meet friends I have not seen before in 
years. Who knows? I may discover that 
this is a far better and kindlier world than I 
had ever dreamed it could be. 

So I sing out to Harriet as I go down: 

“Merry Christmas, Harriet’”—and not 






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4 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


waiting for her sleepy reply I go down and 
build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire 
of the year. Then I get into my thick coat 
and mittens and open the back door. All 
around the sill, deep on the step, and all 
about the yard lies the drifted snow: it has 
transformed my wood pile into a grotesque 
Indian mound, and it frosts the roof of my 
barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily 
with my wooden shovel, clearing out a path- 
way to the gate. 

Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings 
we've had—but clear and very still. The 
sun is just coming up over the hill near 
Horace’s farm. From Horace’s chimney the 
white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight 
upward, all golden with sunshine, into the 
measureless blue of the sky—on its way to 
heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the 
gate my blood is racing warmly in my veins. 
I straighten my back, thrust my shovel into 
the snow pile, and shout at the top of my 
voice, for I can no longer contain myself: 

“Merry Christmas, Harriet.” 

Harriet opens the door—just a crack. 

“Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic ex- 
plorer! Oo—but it’s cold!” 


A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD ine 


And she closes the door. 

Upon hearing these riotous sounds the 
barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear my 
horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens 
begin to crow and cackle, and such a grunting 
and squealing as the pigs set up from behind 
the straw stack, it would do a man’s heart 
good to hear! 

“It’s a friendly world,” I say to myself, “and 
full of business.” | 

I plow through the snow to the stable 
door. I scuff and stamp the snow away 
and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud 
of steam arises out of the warmth within. I 
step inside. My horse raises his head above 
the stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes 
his forefoot on the stable floor—the best 
ereeting he has at his command for a fine 
Christmas morning. My cow, until now si- 
lent, begins to bawl. 

I lay my hand on the horse’s flank and he 
steps over in his stall to let me go by. I 
slap his neck and he lays back his ears play- 
fully. Thus I go out into the passageway 
and give my horse his oats, throw corn and 
stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain 
to Harriet’s chickens (it’s the only way to 


6 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


stop the cackling!). And thus presently 
the barnyard is quiet again except for the 
sound of contented feeding. 

Take my word for it, this is one of the 
pleasant moments of life. I stand and look 
long at my barnyard family. I observe with 
satisfaction how plump they are and how 
well they are bearing the winter. Then 
I look up at my mountainous straw stack 
with its capping of snow, and my corn crib 
with the yellow ears visible through the 
slats, and my barn with its mow full of hay 
—all the gatherings of the year, now being 
expended in growth. I cannot at all ex- 
plain it, but at such moments the circuit 
of that dim spiritual battery which each of 
us conceals within seems to close, and the full 
current of contentment flows through our lives. 

All the morning as I went about my chores 
TY had a peculiar sense of expected pleasure. 
It seemed certain to me that something 
unusual and adventurous was about to hap- 
pen—and if it did not happen offhand, 
why I was there to make it happen! When 
I went in to breakfast (do you know the 
fragrance of broiling bacon when you have 
worked for an hour before breakfast on a 


A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 7 


morning of zero weather? If you do not, 
consider that heaven still has gifts in store 
for you!)—when I went in to breakfast, I 
fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but 
I was too busy just then (hot corn muffins) to 
make an inquiry, and I knew by experience 
that the best solvent of secrecy is patience. 

“David,” said MHarriet, presently, “the 
cousins can’t come!” 

“Can’t come!” I exclaimed. 

“Why, you act as if you were delighted.” 

‘““No—well, yes,’ I said, “I knew that 
some extraordinary adventure was about to 
happen!’ 

“Adventure! It’s a cruel disappointment 
—I was all ready for them.” 

“Harriet,” I said, “adventure is just what 
we make it. And aren’t we to have the Scotch 
Preacher and his wife?” 

“But ve got such a good dinner.” 

“Well,” I said, “there are no two ways about 
it: it must be eaten! You may depend upon 
me to do my duty.” 

“We'll have to send out into the highways 
and compel them to come in,” said Harriet 
ruefully. 

I had several choice observations I should 


8 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


have liked to make upon this problem, but 
Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat 
with her eyes fixed reflectively on the coffee- 
pot. JI watched her for a moment, then I re- 
marked: 

“There aren’t any.” 

“David,” she exclaimed, “how did you 
know what I was thinking about?” 

“IT merely wanted to show you,’ I said, 
“that my genius is not properly appreciated 
in my own household. You thought of high- 
ways, didn’t you? Then you thought of the 
poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; 
then of Mrs. Heney, who isn’t poor any more, 
having married John Daniels; and then I said, 
AUMereparen hat veuK 

Harriet laughed. 

“It has come to a pretty pass,” she said, 
“when there are no poor people to invite tc 
dinner on Christmas day.” 

“It’s a tragedy, I'll admit,” I said, “but let’s 
be logical about it.” 

“T am willing,” said Harriet, “to be as logical 
as you like.” 

“Then,” I said, “having no poor to invite to 
dinner we must necessarily try the rich. 
That’s logical, isn’t it?” 


A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 9 


“Who?” asked Harriet, which is just like a 
woman. Whenever you get a good healthy 
argument started with her, she will suddenly 
short-circuit it, and want to know if you mean 
Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins’s boys, which I main- 
tain is not logical. 

“Well, there are the Starkweathers,”’ I 
said. 

“David!” — 

“They’re rich, aren’t they?” 

“Yes, but you know how they live—what 
dinners they have—and besides, they probably 
have a houseful of company.” 

“Weren't you telling me the other day how 
many people who were really suffering were too 
proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't 
you advising the necessity of getting acquainted 
with people and finding out—tactfully, of 
course—you made a point of tact—what the 
trouble was?” 

“But I was talking of poor people.” 

“Why shouldn’t a rule that is good for poor 
people be equally as good for rich people? 
Aren’t they proud?” 

“Oh, you can argue,” observed Harriet. 

PAC. Brean act, too, oli said. 1 am, now 
going over to invite the Starkweathers. I 


BRIS Se "5 Se pal a AR EADY SERRE Nana en 


10 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


heard a rumor that their cook has left them and 
I expect to find them starving in their parlour. 
Of course they'll be very haughty and proud, 
but Pll be tactful, and when I go away I'l 
casually leave a diamond tiara in the front 
hall 

“What is the matter with you this morn- 
ing?” 

Vihristmas wiysai: 

I can’t tell how pleased I was with the 
enterprise I had in mind: it suggested all 
sorts of amusing and surprising develop- 
ments. Moreover, I left Harriet, finally, in 
the breeziest of spirits, having quite forgotten 
her disappointment over the non-arrivai of the 
cousins. 

“If you should get the Starkweathers 

“In the bright lexicon of youth,’” I ob- 
served, “ ‘there is no such word as fail.’ ” 

So I set off up the town road. A team 
or two had already been that way and. had 
broken a track through the snow. The 
sun was now fully up, but the air still tingled 
with the electricity of zero weather. And 
the fields! I have seen the fields of June 
and the fields of October, but I think I never 
saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree 


9) 





A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD II 


spaces and brook bottoms, more enchant- 
ingly beautiful than it was this morning. 
Snow everywhere—the fences half hidden, 
the bridges clogged, the trees laden: where 
the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, 
and where it was soft I strode through the 
drifts. And the air went to one’s head like 
wine! 

So I tramped past the Pattersons’. The old 
man, a grumpy old fellow, was going to the 
barn with a pail on his arm. 

“Merry Christmas,” I shouted. 

He looked around at me wonderingly and 
micenot reply. AL. the corners) 1) met. the 
Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that 
I could see only their eyes and the red ends of 
their small noses. I passed the Williams’s 
house, where there was a cheerful smoke in 
the chimney and in the window a green wreath 
with a lively red bow. And I thought how 
happy everyone must be on a Christmas morti- 
ing like this! At the hill bridge who should 
I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God 
bless him! 

“Well, well, David,” he exclaimed heartily, 
“Merry Christmas.” 

I drew my face down and said solemnly: 


12 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


“Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious 
errand.” 

“Why, now, what’s the matter?’ He was 
all sympathy at once. 

“T am out in the highways trying to compel 
the poor of this neighbourhood to come to our 
feast.” 

The Scotch Preacher observed me with a 
twinkle in his eye. 

“David,” he said, putting his hand to his 
mouth as if to speak in my ear, “there is a poor 
man you will na’ have to compel.” 

“Oh, you don’t count,” I said. “You're com- 
ing anyhow.” 

Then I told him of the errand with our 
millionaire friends, into the spirit of which he 
entered with the greatest zest. He was full 
of advice and much excited lest I fail to do 
a thoroughly competent job. For a moment 
I think he wanted to take the whole thing out 
of my hands. 

“Man, man, it’s a lovely thing to do,’ he 
exclaimed, “but I ha’ me doots—I ha’ me 
doots.”’ 

At parting he hesitated a moment, and with 
a serious face inquired: 

“Ts it by any chance a goose?” 


A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 13 


“It is,” I said, “a goose—a big one.” 

He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. 
“You have comforted my mind,” he said, “with 
the joys of anticipation—a goose, a big 
goose.” 

So I left him and went onward toward the 
Starkweathers’. Presently I saw the great 
house standing among its wintry trees. There 
was smoke in the chimney but no other 
evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, 
which had been of the best all the morning, 
began to fail me. Though Harriet and I 
were well enough acquainted with the Stark- 
weathers, yet at this late moment on 
Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair- 
brained scheme to think of inviting them to 
dinner. 

“Never mind,’ I said, “they'll not be dis- 
pleased to see me anyway.” 

I waited in the reception-room, which 
was cold and felt damp. In the parlour 
beyond I could see the innumerable things 
of beauty—furniture, pictures, books, so 
very, very much of everything—with which 
the room was filled. I saw it now, as I had 
often seen it before, with a peculiar sense 
of weariness. How all these things, though 


EE 


14 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


beautiful enough in themselves, must clutter up 
a man’s life! | 

Do you know, the more I look into life, 
the more things it seems to me I can suc- 
cessfully lack—and continue to grow hap- 
pier. How many kinds of food I do not 
need, nor cooks to cook them, how much 
curious clothing nor tailors to make it, how 
many books that I never read, and pictures 
that are not worth while! The farther I run, 
the more I feel like casting aside all such im- 
pedimenta—lest I fail to arrive at the far goal 
of my endeavour. 

I like to think of an old Japanese noble- 
man I once read about, who ornamented 
his house with a single vase at a time, living 
with it, absorbing its message of beauty, 
and when he tired of it, replacing it with 
another. I wonder if he had the right way, 
and we, with so many objects to hang on 
our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our 
chairs, and spread on our floors, have mis- 
taken our course and placed our hearts upon 
the multiplicity rather than the quality of 
our possessions! 

Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in 
the doorway. He wore a velvet smoking- 


A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 15 


jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a bright 
morning like this, he seemed old, and worn, 
and cold. 

“Well, well, friend,” he said, ‘I’m glad to 
see you.’ 

He said it as though he meant it. 

“Come into the library; it’s the only 
room in the whole house that is comfortably 
warm. You've no idea what a task it is 
to heat a place like this in really cold weather. 
No sooner do I find a man who can run 
my furnace than he goes off and leaves 
me.7 

“T can sympathize with you,’ I said, “we 
often have trouble at our house with the man 
who builds the fires.” 

He looked around at me quizzically. 

“He lies too long in bed in the morning,” I 
said. 

By this time we had arrived at the library, 
where a bright fire was burning in the grate. 
It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnish- 
ings and books in cases along one wall, but 
this morning it had a dishevelled and untidy 
look. On a little table at one side of the 
fireplace were the remains of a_ breakfast; 
at the other a number of wraps were thrown 


eee a 





16 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


carelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. 
Starkweather rose from her place, drawing 
a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a 
robust, rattier handsome woman, with many 
rings on her fingers, and a pair of glasses 
hanging to a little gold hook on her ample 
bosom; but this morning she, too, looked 
worried and old. 

“Oh, yes,’ she said with a rueful laugh, 
“we're beginning a merry Christmas, as you 
see. Think of Christmas with no cook in 
the house!” 

I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. 
Poor starving millionaires! 

But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the 
whole of her sorrowful story. 

“We had a company of friends invited 
for dinner to-day,’ she said, “and our cook 
was ill—or said she was—and had to go. 
One of the maids went with her. The man 
who looks after the furnace disappeared 
on Friday, and the stableman has been drink- 
ing. We can’t very well leave the place 
without some one who is responsible in 
charge of it—and so here we are. Merry 
Christmas!” 

I couldn’t help laughing. Poor people! 


A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 17 


“You might,” I said, “apply for Mrs. 
Heney’s place.” 

“Who is Mrs. Heney?” asked Mrs. Stark- 
weather. 

“You don’t mean to say that you never 
heard of Mrs. Heney!” I exclaimed. “Mrs. 
Heney, who is now Mrs. ‘Penny’ Daniels? 
You’ve missed one of our greatest celebrities.” 

With that, of course, I had to tell them 
about Mrs. Heney, who has for years per- 
formed a most important function in this 
community, Alone and unaided she _ has 
been the poor whom we are supposed to 
have always with us. If it had not been for 
the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at 
Thanksgiving, Christmas and other times of 
the year, I suppose our Woman’s Aid Society 
and the King’s Daughters would have per- 
ished miserably of undistributed turkeys 
and tufted comforters. For years Mrs. 
Heney filled the place most acceptably. 
Curbing the natural outpourings of a rather 
jovial soul she could upon occasion look as 
deserving of charity as any person that ever 
Mimetys but 1 pitied: the little 'Heneys: it 
always comes hard on the children. For 
weeks after every Thanksgiving and Christ- 


18 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


mas they always wore a painfully stuffed 
and suffocated look. I only came to appre- 
ciate fully what a_ self-sacrificing public 
servant Mrs. Heney really was when I learned 
that she had taken the desperate alternative 
of marrying “Penny” Daniels. 

“So you think we might possibly aspire to 
the position?” laughed Mrs. Starkweather. 

Upon this I told them of the trouble in 
our household and asked them to come down 
and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the 
goose. 

When I left, after much more pleasant talk, 
they both came with me to the door seeming 
greatly improved in spirits. 

“You've given us something to live for, Mr. 
Grayson,” said Mrs. Starkweather. 

So I walked homeward in the highest 
spirits, and an hour or more later who should 
we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. 
Starkweather and his wife floundering in the 
snow. They reached the lane literally covered 
from top to toe with snow and both of them 
ruddy with the cold. 

“We walked over,” said Mrs. Starkweather 
breathlessly, “and I haven’t had so much fun 
in years.” 


A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 19 


Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. 
The Scotch Preacher stood on the steps to 
receive them, and we all went in together. 

I can’t pretend to describe Harriet’s dinner: 
the gorgeous brown goose, and the apple 
sauce, and all the other things that best 
go with it, and the pumpkin pie at the end 
—the finest, thickest, most delicious pump- 
kin pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted 
in one’s mouth and brought visions of 
celestial bliss. And I wish I could have 
a picture of Harriet presiding. I have never 
seen her happier, or more in her element. 
Every time she brought in a new dish or 
took off a cover it was a sort of miracle. And 
her coffee—but I must not and dare not 
elaborate. 

And what great talk we had afterward! 

I’ve known the Scotch Preacher for a long 
time, but I never saw him in quite such a 
mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather 
told stories of their boyhood—and we 
laughed, and laughed—Mrs. Starkweather 
the most of all. Seeing her so often in her 
carriage, or in the dignity of her home, I 
didn’t think she had so much jollity in her. 
Finally she discovered Harriet’s cabinet or- 


20 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 


gan, and nothing would do but she must sing 
for us. 

“None of the new-fangled ones, Clara,” 
cried her husband: “some of the old ones we 
used to know.” 

So she sat herself down at the organ and 
threw her head back and began to sing: 


“Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, 
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day——,” 





Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran 
over to the organ and joined in with his 
deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The 
Scotch Preacher’s wife nodded in time with 
the music, and presently I saw the tears in 
her eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on 
the edge of his chair with his hands on his 
knees and wagged his shaggy head, and be- 
fore we got through he, too, joined in with 
his big sonorous voice: 

“Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou 
art Nie 

Oh, I can’t tell here—it grows late and 
there’s work to-morrow—all the things we 
did and said. They stayed until it was dark, 
and when Mrs. Starkweather was _ ready 
to go, she took both of Harriet’s hands in 
hers and said with great earnestness: 





A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 21 


“I haven’t had such a good time at Christ- 
mas since I was a little girl. I shall never 
forget it.” 

And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when 
Harriet and I had wrapped him up, went out, 
saying: 

“This has been a day of pleasant bread.” 

It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. 
What a lot of kindness and common human 
nature—childlike simplicity, if you will— 
there is in people once you get them down to- 
gether and persuade them that the things they 
think serious are not serious at all. 





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